Slowly rejoining my meaning

The Vanishing of Owen Taylor is resurfacing, again. It's ready for me to begin my slash and burn through its more than 500 double-spaced pages...and I'm pretty much in agreement. Melodrama must be wrung from it for the main part of the story to work, as should the repetition I'd grown subject to. I can now see reasons for Tone's actions and why they fit into the narrative.  It's still a very dark story, but I can see the need for it, now.

Prior to this, I just wanted to continue with Jake's story. Give him some meaning unto himself. That's okay enough to get things started, but for this book to work there has to be more. And I'm finding that by just letting it go and trusting all will be revealed...it's being revealed. Even though I'm wary of it thanks to the beating I got from the first draft.

I'm still not sure why I went such a crazy direction with it, or why I thought I was pulling back enough from the "Hollywood-esque" aspects of the actions. Hell, in my initial draft of the end, I had Jake running back and forth between Riverside and Palm Springs and feeling like he's being followed, and that was ludicrous.

Bad Noir. Bad bad Noir.